National President Dougan Calls for Immediate Release of Agency Shutdown Contingency Plans in Letter to Obama

Washington,
D.C. – This
afternoon, NFFE National President William R.
Dougan penned a letter to President Obama and
OMB Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey
Zients requesting the immediate release of
agency contingency plans, in light of a recent
memo from Zients to agency leadership to
accelerate preparations for a shutdown.

Full
body of President Dougan’s letter
follows:

“On
behalf of the National Federation of Federal
Employees (NFFE), and the 110,000 federal
workers our union represents throughout the
United States and abroad, I would like to
request the immediate release of agency
shutdown contingency plans to federal
employees’ union
representatives.

Federal
unions asked for copies of these plans during
the March 16 meeting of the National Council on
Federal Labor Management Relations. We
were told by OMB Deputy Director for Management
Jeffrey Zients at that meeting that agency
plans were in various stages of being written
and/or being reviewed for consistency by OMB,
and that they would be made available to unions
and employees “when a government shutdown was
imminent.”

In light
of Zients’ April 4 memo instructing senior
administration officials to share their
contingency plans with senior management
personnel, it appears that time has come. In
the memo he states, “good management requires
that we continue contingency planning for an
orderly shutdown should the negotiations not be
completed by the end of the current CR this
coming Friday, April 8th at midnight.” We agree
with this statement.

With a
potential government shutdown just days away,
it is imperative that federal employees and
their union representatives gain access to
these documents. It is detrimental to the
morale and overall well-being of the workforce
to withhold these plans any longer. Now is the
time to share these plans with the hardworking
federal employees who will be impacted the most
by a government shutdown.

We
respectfully request that these documents be
made immediately available to NFFE and the
other unions which represent federal
employees.”